Vocera Wave
Shriya Maru
Vocera Wave
An organized patient driven call system, enhancing patient – nurse communication. The system effectively lightens the workload of healthcare workers, contributing to an improved healthcare delivery process.
WHY – PROBLEM SPACE
Today, nurses are burnt out and overwhelmed. There is a severe shortage of healthcare professionals which has resulted in shocking nurse to patient ratios. At a given time, a nurse may be attending to 3 or 4 patient calls simultaneously. Over and above this nurse can be called by patients for a variety of reasons ranging from health, personal to comfort needs. However when called, they are not aware of the nature of the call which prevents them prioritizing calls.
WHAT – THE PRODUCT
Streamlining care response – Direct Requests
The current process is unstructured. Vocera Wave allows call requests to be triaged by urgency and appropriately directed to relevant team members based on the nature of the request. A health need alert is sent to a nurse, personal care alert to an assistant and housekeeping alert to the housekeeping staff.
Compatible with context – Discrete Alerting System
Vocera Wave is compatible with the context. Instead of phones, alerting through smart watches enhances the immediacy and accessibility of critical information for healthcare workers. Using wearable devices which remain on the person further allows features such as haptic feedback to be integrated with ease, unlike phones stored in pockets or left at the nurses’ station.
Comprehensive assessment – Reminder Nudge
With a reminder to assess all needs of the patients before “ending” any call, most commonly requested things are taken care of in one interaction. This acts as a preventative mechanism, reducing the frequency of calls overall.
A usable and adoptable product, Vocera Wave is paving the way for a future where communication meets care at every turn.
I have written an article describing the critical need for innovation in improving the seemingly simple administration and facilitation of care. I have emphasized the frequent mismatch between the proposed idea it’s feasibility to implement, due to the dynamically changing and complex nature of the healthcare systems. To address this issue, I’ve suggested applying the Diffusion of Innovation Theory alongside UX principles to make innovation both usable and primed for adoption.
